Monday, September 01, 2014

Silverstring, Sarkeesian, Quinn

There sure has been a lot of social-justice bullshit over the past year in the video-gaming community / sphere / ghetto. I mean - there've always been complaints about "sexism" in games, but most of us have let it all slide. The sexists know who they are; they don't care. As for me, minion of Darkness - the very issue has rarely come up in thesortsofgamesIplay. But that's just me. Leave me alone to play, has generally been my motto.

But over the last year, I've suddenly been forced to defend my not-very-often-indulged vice against critics of the entire field. It's apparently not enough that I buy pro-woman stuff for myself and ignore the Revenge Of Custer's Return. (Or, to give the floor to better efforts: Grand Theft Auto and I-0.) And so the white knights have launched what I can only describe as a holy crusade, or jihad - whichever - against this phantom heresy.

The catalyst, best I can tell, was one Anita Sarkeesian - who doesn't play many games as such (probably about as many as I do), yet somehow has raised herself as an authority on the topic (which I would never claim to be myself). I now find that Sarkeesian is an "advisor", whatever that means, for this creepy outfit called Silverstring. This is a PR firm, -ish, with links with several indie-gaming blogs. Against her opportunistic trolling, Sarkeesian has predictably received some pushback; and some of it has been less polite than what you are reading here.

Can we at least get an acknowledgement, if not an apology, from Angry Joe and other journos whom we've (for whatever reason) been following lo these many years - that perhaps we their audience weren't their enemy all along?